


i know the world's a broken bone, but melt your headaches call it home

by Cairdeaslight



Series: call it home [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Endgame fix it, First Kiss, Fix-It, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 16:23:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18608176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cairdeaslight/pseuds/Cairdeaslight
Summary: SPOILERS FOR ENDGAMEBucky knows long before Steve comes to talk to him.Over the years he has grown accustomed to the tell-tale signs of Steve thinking too hard and when he slowly reclaimed his memories, that was one of the easiest parts. Like his body never quite unlearned Steves’.“I’ve been thinking”, Steve says, voice low like he’s afraid he’ll be overheard by someone.“Shocker”, Bucky replies dryly. That earns him a small smile and Steves shoving Buckys foot with his own halfheartedly. It bumps against Buckys leg and stays there.





	i know the world's a broken bone, but melt your headaches call it home

**Author's Note:**

> I watched Endgame a few days ago and the longer I thought about the more Steves ending bugged me. A huge part of his arc and also his story with Peggy was about moving on and it honestly felt more like going backwards. I thought it was an extremely selfish, ooc decision of Steve to go back in time and live his life with Peggy - she had a husband and a family after all and had moved on.   
> Also, yeah, I'm salty about him leaving Bucky even if Bucky was alright with it. So here's the fix-it. 
> 
> I tried my best even though it feels a little bit rushed at the end.

Bucky knows long before Steve comes to talk to him. 

Over the years he has grown accustomed to the tell-tale signs of Steve thinking too hard and when he slowly reclaimed his memories, that was one of the easiest parts. Like his body never quite unlearned Steves’. 

The most obvious sign is the quietness. Which isn’t too uncharacteristic after the hell they just went through, but combined with his restlessness, the tense line in his shoulder, the way his eyebrows are drawn together – well, it doesn’t take long for Bucky to notice. 

From there on it isn’t too hard for him to figure out what exactly Steve is thinking about that much. Maybe he has known all along, he thinks. Steve never signed up for this – for fighting back in the fourties, yes, but this? Giving his life and waking up seventy years into the future, not knowing anyone, fighting battle after battle? 

So maybe it’s just that he’s tired. He would get it, because god, he is so tired of everything himself. Bucky isn’t stupid, knows that the fight won’t ever stop. Hydra taught him that lesson and the world continues to remind him of that, blow after blow. He hasn’t seen his sisters in over seventy years. It feels like it was a week ago that he was drafted for the war, but it actually has been a lifetime. 

He has visited their graves, has left flowers. It was one of the first things he did after remembering. Same with his ma and Steves. There was one for him next to his family, the letters “James Buchanan Barnes - loved son, brother and a hero in all senses of the word” on it and the dates of his birth and apparent death beneath it.   
The words felt as empty for him as the grave was.   
A hero was someone like Steve, someone who stood up to bullies and never backed down, never gave up. Him? He was just a puppet on strings, following orders of one group and then another and another again. There was nothing special about that. 

Maybe it’s good that his family is gone. He wouldn’t want them to see what he has become. 

He thinks about the past sometimes. Not as much as he used to when he got his memories back (not all of them, some he is still clawing at, only scratching at the surface) and not in the way he used to. But sometimes, when he sees things here that he wouldn’t have dreamed of back then, he thinks: What if they would have had that in the forties? How much suffering could some things have prevented had they been discovered earlier? 

A lot of things about the 21st century are amazing and he only had the time to discover so much. Still, there is a part in him that yearns for home. For a time where being on the run from the whole world wasn’t the only reality he knew. A time in which things were simpler yet harder. He thought he could find a home here. Or he had hoped, rather.   
And for some time, it had gone really well. There was Wakanda with brilliant Shuri and her brother, T’Challa, who created a spot for him in their home like it was self-evident. 

There were Sam and Natasha who he had grown closer to on the run and the countless missions they created for themselves just to have something to do. 

And there was, of course, Steve. Steve who was home to Bucky in so many ways and who always had a Bucky-shaped place in his heart, no matter what he had done. Steve, who had found and saved him in every sense of the word. 

Which brings him exactly to his problem at hand. He knows what Steve is thinking about and he knows what he will ask him because he knows Steve. Knows his thought process, his dreams and fears and every single thing about him. The only thing he doesn’t know yet is his answer.

The sun has almost set when Steve comes to talk to him. They’re still at Starks huose, his wife – Pepper – has invited them to stay over the night and even though Steve tried to decline the offer, she had insisted on it. Bucky thinks he likes her.   
The house is small and feels warm and welcoming, nothing Bucky would have expected of the Tony Stark he knew. But then again, he never had gotten to really know the guy. 

Bucky is sitting on the balcony of the guest-room he shares with Steve. It had been an unspoken agreement that they would stick together. Would not let each other out of sight just in case they – just in case. 

He hears Steves steps from behind before he sits down in the chair next to Bucky. Bucky glances his way: Steve is wearing a simple white shirt and boxers. Any other person would be cold in just that, but the serum is keeping Steves body warm. The lines in his face has softened but he still looks tired; exhausted even. There’s bruises on his face and arms and a dried cut on his cheek. Buckys fingers itch to touch it; he clamps them around the chair. 

“I’ve been thinking”, Steve says, voice low like he’s afraid he’ll be overheard by someone. 

“Shocker”, Bucky replies dryly. That earns him a small smile and Steves shoving Buckys foot with his own halfheartedly. It bumps against Buckys leg and stays there. 

“I was being serious”, he says, rolling his eyes a little, “I’ve been thinking about the stones. About returning them. You know, with the whole time travel thing being a possibility, I thought...”

Bucky nods. “I know.”

Steve doesn’t seem to be surprised. He just sighs and looks at him really long like he’s staring right into his soul. He’s always been good at that. “Buck...”

To his own surprise Bucky laughs softly. “You know, back when we were kids – I mean if someone had told me about all this, about the future, my future. I would have called them a fat-head and we would have laughed about it some. How crazy is all this?”

“Pretty damn crazy”, Steve murmurs. And because he knows that Bucky knows he says: “We could move back together in your house.”

“Our house, Steve.”

“Yeah. But we could, couldn’t we? It would be like it used to be. We could go to the bakery across the street and you could see your sisters and we could meet up with Peggy -”

Bucky sighs and that tiny motion seems to reach Steve who stops talking. “Everyone knows your face and I’m supposedly dead. How will that work out?” 

Steve shrugs and smiles a hopeful little smile. “We can go away. Explore Europe or something like that. You always wanted to do that. We’ll figure it out.”   
It’s moments like this that Bucky will never take for granted. That he couldn’t ever take for granted because of how rare and beautiful it is: They’ve been scattered all over the wold, meant to die ten times over and still found each other, always found each others arms again. He doesn’t believe in destiny but this right here comes pretty close. 

Before Steve has the chance to start talking again Bucky leaps forward and presses his lips on Steves. Like all first kiss he expects it to feel new, like something he never did before and doesn’t completely know how to do. But it doesn’t. After all these years it feels like coming home. And then Steves’ kissing him back and they’re moving in perfect synchronization like this is something they rehearsed. 

That is, until Steve topples over while climbing on Buckys lap and crashes onto him, knocking him from his chair in the process. Bucky can’t help but laugh breathlessly, Steves mouth still above his. He wants to kiss him again, but god damn, he just can’t stop laughing. 

“I’m sorry, just – Captain America, the epitome of perfection and grace – oh god, this is perfect.” He giggles, Steve heavy on his chest yet he doesn’t mind the weight. Steve buries his face in Buckys chest but he can feel him grinning. 

“Shut up”, he murmurs when looking up and Bucky is happy to do so when Steve kisses him again. 

 

They are lying in the bed hours later, chests sweaty and a blanket draped over them. 

“I buried my friend today”, Steve says, so quiet that Bucky almost doesn’t hear him. “I buried my friend, the second in a few days, and there’s a girl in this house who will grow up without a father. How is that fair?”

Bucky snuggles up to him and puts a hand on his heart like he did back when they were kids and Steve had caught a really bad cold. “It’s not”, he replies. “It’s horrible and unfair, I know it is. But there’s nothing you can do about it now. It’s neither your fault nor your responsibility.”

Steve is quiet for a long time; so long, in fact, that Bucky thinks he’s fallen asleep. But then he says: “Do you think they’ll forgive me? If I just...leave.”

It’s the first time he’s actually said it out loud. He’s scared, Bucky knows. “You don’t owe them anything. You have given these people everything, you were willing to die for this world. You owe them nothing, you hear me?”

Maybe it’s a little selfish of him because he wants Steve all for himself, wants to keep him here in this bed forever, but he knows that he’s right. Steve has given so much. It is time for the world to give something back to him. Only the world doesn’t do that and so he’ll have take it. 

“Will you come with me?”

There it is. The question that Bucky anticipated so much. And now he knows his answer, has maybe always known it. “Yes. You know it – till the end of the line.” There is no hesitation in his voice, because it is true. He would follow Steve anywhere. 

For a man who has traveled from Brooklyn to Russia and Germany and a whole lot of other places before ending up in Wakanda and then here again, he always knew where his home was. 

 

“I’ll have to take care of a few things first. Just tell me afterwards where and when”, Bucky tells him in the morning when they are outside, a fresh breeze around them and the sun shining on their faces like nothing ever happened. Like the world didn’t crash and burn, like no one died and it was just another morning of many. 

Steve nods, understanding without asking. He isn’t the only one with a little makeshift family.   
He will have to talk to Shuri and her family to thank them. Maybe he’ll say goodbye to the rest of the team, even though he still isn’t sure sometimes where he stands with them. Some he’s grown closer to, but he isn’t one of them, he knows that. He is a man out of time – just like Steve. He could never really fit, could he?

Steve goes to talk to Bruce and Sam and Bucky stays back. 

 

It all goes like it’s supposed to. Steve disappears and Bucky counts the five seconds under his breath. Knows that, when those five seconds are over, a lifetime will have passed for Steve. 

five

He thinks back to the boy he met first in that back alley; the small, bony kid that didn’t give up no matter how hard he was pushed. He thinks back to Steve, brave small Steve, having that furious look in his eyes whenever Bucky came over to his house with a new bruise after his father had drank too much, like he was going to beat him up all on his own.

four 

He thinks back to the kid that shared his few toys with him, that wore newspapers in his shoes and gave his lunch to others who needed it more (Like hell, Bucky had thought and said back then. He’s going to starve one day with how fucking skinny he is already). 

three

He thinks back to the teenager who was too shy to ask any girl to dance with him or go on a date with him but was happy to punch a guy twice his size who got too close to a girl. Thinks back to the guy was so eager to train and get enlisted, not caring about death and getting hurt and only wanting to defeat bullies. One day, Steve had said: “I’ll probably be dead by the time I’m forty, why not go out with meaning?” Bucky had almost punched him, but had then settled on hugging him and making him promise to never, ever say something like that again. 

two

Then, finally, he thinks of the Steve he knows now. He’s not really different, still the same idiot, still putting his life on the line for everyone, but he has settled. Has friends, a life here. They guy who has lost so much and is only twenty-six, but smiles through it. 

one

Bucky closes his eyes, inhales and opens them again. Steve is there. And he isn’t old or looking any different at all – no, he looks almost completely the same he did like five seconds before. 

“Did it work? Did you bring them all back?”

Bucky almost misses half the conversation between Bruce and Steve because he is feeling dizzy with – what? Relieve? Disappointment? He isn’t quite sure yet. 

And then Steve is moving towards him and pulling him into a hug, face buried into his neck. His body slumps against Buckys, like he can’t stand on his own legs. “I’m sorry. God, I was being an idiot. I – I didn’t realize it but I should have.”

They stay like that for what feels like an eternity before Steve slowly lets go of Bucky, hands still touching him like he’s afraid Bucky will disappear again. There are tears in his eyes, Bucky notices.   
Before he has a chance of saying anything, Steve opens his mouth again and says: 

“I was there. I returned the Tesseract and – I visited Peggy. We danced. I promised her, after all. And then I left again, because I figured it all out. I have a home. It’s here, with you and the others, and I know it’s messy and complicated and we’ll have to sort out a lot of things, but – it’s my home now. I have to move on. Peggy did, she’s so happy, Buck, you should have seen her. You know, for all its flaws, this world can be really beautiful sometimes. And I’m done living in the past.”

Bucky shoots back a smile, because whats what Steves does: He gets close to him and pulls long lost emotions out his chest, not even trying. “You’ve always been my home, you punk.”

“And you are mine”, Steve whispers and Bucky can’t help – he leans forward and kisses him again, eyes closed and his forehead touching Steves. 

 

They are home.

**Author's Note:**

> Tell me what you think in the comments please :)


End file.
